When I was writing every day on Quora, I remember seeing a question someone posed there. I’m sure it was designed to make everyone think —-introspectively, that is, and I’ve thought about it many times.
Why do Writers Romanticize Pain?
It would be nice to know what kind of pain they were referring to —physical, mental, or emotional, but I’ll work with whatever comes to mind.
I don’t know anyone that would romanticize physical pain. There is nothing romantic about having pain in our physical body. Although, there could very well be a story behind the pain, in the reason for it ...
A young wife is driving to the airport to welcome her soldier home who was at war for the last year. She’s lost in thought, lost in love and romantic feelings, and she doesn’t see a car about to cut her off on the freeway. The accident puts her in the hospital. I suppose someone could attribute the pain she’s feeling to the love surrounding his homecoming.
Another woman is in the hospital about to give birth to a love child. The man she loved and had an affair with was struck by lightning and died the day before. The child will forever be a symbol of that love to her, in spite of the pain of her loss.
The best healing often comes through writing about painful ‘feelings’ —-when the feelings include loss, or love, maybe that’s what the writer considers to be romanticizing pain.
I’ve struggled with anxiety since my first husband was killed in Vietnam in 1969, and I heal a little more, each time I write about it in some way.
Millions of people know the pain of anxiety. Everyone suffers from it in a different way with different coping mechanisms and every person has their own story. But this is not a generalization of everyone. This will be my story.
There are days I wish it would leave me in peace. There are nights when it screams and I can’t do anything but sleeplessly wait it out. But that doesn’t make me crazy, or imperfect, because I don’t let anxiety define me.
There are times when I am grateful for it. I’m not saying anxiety is good —it’s not and never will be. It’s painful and it’s scary and it lies to me all the time, but it does make me aware I am human, aware that everyone is flawed and has parts of themselves they dislike, or even wish they could change, but they still deserve acceptance and even more, to find and be loved.
For others who suffer from it, I wish I could take it all away. But as it plagues me, it also makes me better as a person. I’m stronger, braver, more caring, more sensitive, more understanding, even one who listens more closely, because I care.
It makes me feel life more deeply when I’m in love —and, those times when I fell out of love.
I have found love again and I will not let my anxiety ruin that. I’ll let it be. I will nurture myself while I nurture my significant other. I will not judge what he feels are his imperfections. I want him to feel loved regardless of what he thinks about himself.
I will love him wholeheartedly, just as he loves me, accepts my anxiety, and is pleasingly aware of everything else that makes me, me.
I am not romanticizing pain when I write about my anxiety. I am explaining, but only to show there is a difference. But it’s so much more than that … I am healing.
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My childhood education was with Dominican nuns. Most of them never learned the meekness of Christ toward little children. Most of them beat us --the boys more than the girls -- with oak rulers draftsmen's metal straight edges bare hands, fists. Besides the beatings there was regular indoctrination in the religion of pain. Many of those nuns seem to have made a specialty out of the most lurid, sadomasochistic tales from the Roman martyrology. After eight years of such inverted sexualization of pain a kid was well prepared for anguish and guilt ridden introspection. That was not romanticization of pain. It was a sick initiation into the pornography af suffering -- all reverently inflicted under the image of the bleeding, crucified Christ.
It appears that you are averse to taking anti-anxiety meds, C.J. As for me, I'm sorry I waited until I was almost 50! When I think of all the years spent in the anxiety waste-land...but I try not to dwell on that and just be so grateful that I was finally "redeemed". Before being formally diagnosed and prescribed meds, I spent the previous year using OTC St. John's Wort which is recommended for things like anxiety or depression. It proved to be effective enough for me at the time that I was able to feel free of the worst aspects of it. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to go the "natural" route.